Sports
Motorsports

Regan Smith wins Nattionwide Series race ahead of Daytona 500

Regan Smith, driver of the #7 Ragu Chevrolet, celebrates in Victory Lane with his wife Megan Mayhew after winning the NASCAR Nationwide Series DRIVE4COPD 300 at Daytona International Speedway on Feb. 22. (AFP)

What the Golden Globes is to the Academy Awards the NASCAR Nationwide Series DRIVE4COPD 300 is often a precursor to the Sprint Cup Daytona 500.

If that is the case this year, watch for everyone to behave themselves on Sunday — well at least until the checkered flag flies to end the race.

In a fierce battle with 2012 Cup champion Brad Keselowski in the No. 22 Penske Racing Ford (see finish-line photo below), Regan Smith won on Saturday driving the No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet by .013 of a second while half a dozen cars were wrecking behind the two of them.

Trevor Bayne, the 2012 Daytona 500 winner, finished third in the No. 6 Roush Racing Ford with Kyle Busch — who led the most laps in the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota — fourth.

Veteran Elliott Sadler rounded out the top five in the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.

“This means a lot,” Smith said. “It is a great way to start the season — a win at Daytona.”

Team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr., who finished 11th and was involved in the final lap crash in the No. 88 Chevrolet, said he was proud of his driver.

“We made a lot of changes to the team and it has worked out,” he said.

NASCAR officials also served notice that tandem racing — where one car pushes the car in front of him or her to gain positions — will not be tolerated as James Buescher in the No. 99 Toyota found out when he was sent to the back for being too close to the No. 22 Ford of Brad Keselowski.

Expect to see more of this kind of penalty when the Sprint Cup cars hit the track on Sunday.

WOOD STILL GOING STRONG

At 88 years old, Glen Wood holds the distinction of being the oldest NASCAR Sprint Cup team owner.

What is more extraordinary is the fact Wood, who co-owns the No. 21 Wood Brothers Ford with brother Leonard, has either raced himself or owned a race car in every single Daytona 500 ever run, all 56 of them. Earlier this week there was a danger that Glen Wood might have to end that streak, as he was at home in Stuart, Va.

He had never liked flying and an unusual (for Virginia) downfall of snow forced him to tell his sons Eddie and Glen, who now run the race team, that he was going miss the big race.

With the help of a Roush Fenway Racing private jet, Eddie flew to Stuart and offered to drive his dad to Daytona.

They set off in Glen’s 2014 Ford Taurus at 7 a.m. on Friday, with Eddie driving the first 468 kms to

St. George, S.C.

After a lunch in St. George, Glen took over the driving and finished the final 480 km in less than five hours to keep his streak alive.

“It never really was about a streak,” Eddie said Saturday.

“It was just one day somebody asked him how many 500s he had been to and he said all of them.

“Daytona from the first week of February to the third week is where we’re supposed to be.”